Bieber is Praying for Forgiveness

In case the underside of that rock was too cozy for you to bother getting on the Internet these past few days, Justin Bieber has come under fire for leaked racist videos from when he was a teenager. The first video featured a 15 year old Bieber telling racist jokes and Bieber features in a second racist video in which he replaces the chorus of his song "One Less Lonely Girl" with a racial slur. Page Six is now reporting that there could be more racist Justin Bieber videos on the way, with sources reporting as much as 15 to 20 minutes of footage that has yet to go public. Are any of us truly surprised?

Bieber gave a blanket apology for the first video that was actually pretty good before the second one came out and many people he's worked with have spoken out in his defense. After all, lots of people do stupid things when they're young, right? And, besides, that was an isolated incident — or at least it was before the second video leaked. Now, with parts of his apology no longer holding up and the prospect of further footage on the way, Bieber is really going to have to scramble to keep accusations of being a racist from following him the rest of his life.

For some reason, Bieber chose to defend himself with Bible passages. No, really. Bieber posted a photo of Bible verses to Instagram, in a page pulled from Jesus Calling by Sarah Young. The photo begins with the words, "When your sins weigh heavily upon you, come to Me. Confess your wrongdoing..." and ends with verses from the New Testament, such as "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin."

Clearly, Bieber posted this more for himself than he did for any of his detractors, but why? Answers can be found on the Instagram of Scooter Braun, Bieber's manager, who posted a text photo of his own on Wednesday.

Based on Bieber's response to the controversy, I would guess that he desires to be defined by his willingness to apologize and turn to religion in times of trouble. That's not a bad way to be defined, but it doesn't actually do much to help him right now. Then again, he might be in the clear if the footage continues to remain from his teen years.

His age doesn't make it okay, but it's a lot easier to argue that while Justin Bieber might be contemptible for a lot of reasons, carrying racist views into adulthood is not one of them. Considering how young he was when he got into the music business, it's entirely possible that he was too sheltered to know better and has since reformed... into a drag racing (not racist) bad boy. Which is so much better.

Image: justinbieber/Instagram; scooterbraun/Instagram